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Top Singing Tips

Man Singing with Passion

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The human voice is one of the most fragile instruments, and is incredibly difficult to master. If you want to learn how to sing well, it’s going to be a long battle, but here are some great singing tips to help you avoid some common pitfalls.

1. Breath from the diaphragm. You really need to control the air that you’re expelling when you sing, and breathing from the diaphragm gives you more control to do this. Breath in so that you feel your stomach moving gently outwards when you inhale.

2. Practice your scales. Yes they can be boring, but they really will exercise your singing muscles and help strengthen your voice and extend your range. They will also help your sense of pitch.

3. Don’t strain your voice. Warm up before you start and don’t try to sing too loud or too high as you might damage your vocal cords. Take it slow and steady and you’ll sing well in no time. Keep your practice time to an hour or so a day, then move up if you feel like it. If you ever feel like your voice is straining, or if you feel soreness or pain, stop right away.

4. Seek out people’s opinion. Learning to sing well takes a long time, and during this time you may hear people’s comments about your voice. Use their comments constructively and if there is something you can improve on, try to work on the problem.

5. Make recordings of yourself. This is the best way to hear your problems, because you can separate yourself from your voice and listen to what other people hear. You may not like the sound of your voice at first, but keep at it; you’ll improve vastly, and you’ll start to notice stuff you like about your voice and really expand on those things.

6. Talk to established singers. Most of them will be happy to give you some tips and exercises that helped them out, and any time you need to ask for directions, the best idea is to ask the person that’s already at your destination.

7. Eat and drink well. Eat healthy and drink plenty of water. Don’t do anything that’ will affect your voice and prevent you from singing well. Caffeine isn’t particularly good for you, as is anything that causes mucous build-up like dairy products (drinking milk before singing is a particular bad choice). Don’t smoke or drink too much alcohol as this can really affect your singing voice.

8. Sing for the style. If you’re singing country, listen to country singers. If you’re singing rock, listen to rock singers, etc. Notice things that are the same in each style and emulate those. Be careful, however, to keep your voice unique, and not to simply copy another singer’s voice. Allow your personality and your voice to come out in your music.

9. Experiment with different sounds. Play around with different sounds. If you sang something with a nasal sound or perhaps a growl, would it improve what you are trying to convey in your song. Have fun too singing your songs in a different genre ,or in the style of a different singer.

10. Stay positive! If you’ve had a bad session, that doesn’t mean your voice is going to be bad forevermore. Have a break, address the problem and try again another day. Don’t get down on yourself, and don’t think that your voice is bad, Mindset is definitely a big part of singing, and you need to be positive. If you don’t think you sound good, neither will anyone else.

Singing Techniques

Singing when done with correct singing techniques will help improve your singing voice.

Are you singing through your nose? Sing an open vowel sound such as AH whilst pinching your nose. Listen to how your tone sounds. Does it sound normal. If it doesn’t or is difficult to do, then you are singing through your nose.

Open your mouth Cradle your face in your hands and gently pull down so that your jaw opens more than usual. Now try singing with your mouth in this position and see how much easier it feels to sing.

Lip Trills This is where you blow air through your lips as if you were mimicking a horse or an engine noise with a gentle sound coming from your throat..Brass players also use this technique to play their instruments. It sounds a bit like you are blowing bubbles underwater. It might take a bit of practice at first to get used to it, and if you smile, you’ll lose it. Yes I know you feel stupid and that it tickles your nose, but it’s a fantastic way of keeping your larynx down and not straining your voice when practicing scales or even songs.

Tongue Trills This is where your tongue rolls and vibrates against the back of your teeth, as if you were saying Brrrrrr on a cold day. It may not come naturally to some people, and may take a bit of practice to get used to. Its another gentle way of exercising your voice along higher notes without straining your voice.

Tongue Tension Does your tongue have too much tension? Press your thumb up into the flesh behind the bone of your chin when you are singing. It should feel soft and supple. The base of your tongue is almost attached to your larynx, so if your tongue is tense, then your voice has to work harder. Try to relax and open your mouth more when you sing.

How much air do I need? Try humming/singing through a straw. Try not to let any air escape through your nose either. This will give you an idea of how much air you really need to be able to sing.

Problems With Your Voice

Singing Should Never Hurt. If you try to sing a song and it hurts, you are doing something wrong. Don’t continue as this is going to cause damage to your throat and vocal chords. You will need to identify what you are doing that is causing you to hurt.

Did you warm-up your voice before you started singing? You wouldn’t see an athlete tearing around the racetrack without having gone through a warm-up routine. You should do the same for your vocal chords

Are you singing too high or to low? Maybe you should think about changing the key of the song to make it more comfortable for your range.

Is it your singing technique? Many singers have never learned good singing technique, so seek advice from a singing teacher or vocal coach.They will be able to help you to identify where you are going wrong, and point you in the right direction

If this doesn’t help then a visit to your Doctor may identify what could possibly be causing your singing voice to hurt.

Vocal Care

Your voice is your instrument, so always take care of your body.

Drink plenty of water. This allows the cells around your throat and larynx to be well hydrated

Eat healthy. Junk food is so called for a reason

Avoid drinking alcohol and smoking,

Don’t shout or whisper. It really strains your voice

Try to give your voice a day off every week, especially if you have a busy schedule. That means no singing or talking.

How To Read Music

Learning to read the notated language of music is not really any harder than learning any other technical jargon and skills. Written music has been developed over thousands of years and even the current form of music we read today has been around for over 300 years. Written music will tell its reader things like pitch, note duration and timing, whether its loud or quiet, flowing or choppy. Music is read left to right across the page.

To read music you will start with a stave (aka staff): Five horizontal lines with a curly symbol called a clef to indicate its pitch.

Treble and Bass Clef

The diagram below will show you where each note on the piano is represented on the staves

The Notes Of The Treble Clef

The Notes Of The Bass Clef

The reason that there are two clefs is that most instruments using the bass clef usually have a lower pitch (sound) and often play low notes. If they were to use the treble clef the notes would appear so far below the stave it would be hard to read.

Time Signature

Time signature is an indication of rhythm following a clef, generally shown as a fraction. The number on top is the number of notes per measure, and the bottom number is what kind of note.

Lets use the most popular time signature, 4/4 as an example.. This means there are 4 somethings per measure. Music notes are shown as different symbols to show the different time measures. So our 4/4 time signature means there are four quarter notes (known as crotchets) in each bar

Example: a 4/4 time signature is 4 crotchet beats to a bar (common in most pop music); a 3/4 signature is 3 crotchet beats to a bar (most waltzes have this time measure) and a 6/8 time signature have 6 quaver (8th) beats to a bar (has more of a swing rhythm than a waltz). (The note names and values are explain below.) On a piece of sheet music, you will see thin vertical lines crossing the stave at regular intervals. These lines represent the time measures. You may well have unconsciously found the time measure to your favourite songs by tapping along ‘1,2,3,4’ with the music.

Timing and Rhythm

Our basic 4/4 time signature using 4 crotchet beats to the bar will have a walking pace feel to it. By mixing up the different note values and by using rests (where no music plays for set beats), you can create an infinite amount of rhythms.

Tempo

Tempo is the speed of the underlying beat. Tempo is measured in BPM (beats per minute). 60BPM is one beat every second. Sometimes the tempo is written at the beginning of the music and is often called the metronome mark. In classical music Italian musical terms are often used to describe tempo. A few are described below:

Largo – slowly and broadly

Andante – slowish – a walking pace

Moderato – at moderate speed

Allegro – fast

Presto – very quick

Key Signatures

The key signature is the collection of sharps ♯ or flats ♭that you can see at the beginning of a staff. Key Signatures tell us what scale the piece is made up from, so we know which notes to raise or lower to get the right “colour” of that particular tonality, or key. They tell us what notes are either raised (♯ ) or lowered (♭) throughout the piece. The main reason for using a signature and not simply accidentals, is that it makes the music looks cleaner and easier to read.

Major or Minor

What Is the Difference Between Major and Minor?

The difference between major and minor chords and scales boils down to a difference of one essential note – the third. The third is what gives major-sounding scales and chords their brighter, cheerier sound, and what gives minor scales and chords their darker, sadder sound.

If you’ve spent any time studying a few scales you should know many scales contain seven different notes. For example, the major scale contains a Root, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th. All of these scales and chords contain that important note the 3rd in them. A minor 3rd is one interval note (semi-tone) lower than a major 3rd.

Tip

How To Figure Out if a Key is in Major or Minor?

If the signature has one sharp, it means it could be either G major or its relative; E minor.

Now check out the last note or bass note of the final chord. This is normally the tonic (the first note of the scale):

If the last note (or chord) is an E, the piece is in E minor.

If it is a G it is in G major.

This is because most pieces finish on a note/chord that sounds like ‘home’ (tonic).

Dots and Ties

All notes have a certain time value, which determines how long a pitch should be held. Sometimes, however, you want to add to the value of a note to create syncopation or other interest in your musical piece. You can extend a note’s value in written music using dots and ties:

Dot: This dot indicates that a note’s value is increased by one half of its original value. The most common use of the dotted note is when a minim (half note) is made to last three quarter-note beats instead of two, as shown below.

Tie: Tied notes connect notes to create one sustained note instead of two separate ones. When you see a tie, simply add the notes together. For example, a crotchet (quarter note) tied to another crotchet equals a note held for two beats.

Elements of Music

Music is made up of many different things called elements. They are the building bricks of music. When you compose a piece of music you use the elements of music to build it, just like a builder uses bricks to build a house. When you listen to a piece of music, you’ll notice that it has several different characteristics; it may be soft or loud, slow or fast, combine different instruments and have a regular rhythmic pattern.

Timbre – the quality of a note, determined by its overtones. Brass instruments sound different to string instruments, even when playing the same pitched note.

Pitch – the primary frequency of a note

Dynamics – the degree of loudness of a note

Texture – the thickness and feel of a note. How many sounds

Tempo – the speed at which notes are performed and the relative time between adjacent notes which give you the rhythm

Duration – the length of time a note is held

Structure – the overall plan of how you bring the elements together to create your sound

About Your Voice

Voice is the sound made by vibration of the vocal cords caused by air passing out through the larynx bringing the cords closer together.

Your vocal cord (also known as vocal folds) are two, white mucosal membranes situated inside your larynx (Adam’s Apple). These membranes are fixed at one end, giving them a V-shape and open and close to allow for breathing and sound production.

Your larynx sits on top of your trachea (windpipe) and as air passes through with each breath you take, your vocal cords vibrate creating a sound. The frequency that your vocal cords vibrate will determine the pitch of your sound.

Male vocal cords tend to be longer and thicker, giving the male voice a deeper, lower sound, whereas female vocal cords tend to be shorter and thinner giving the female voice a higher and lighter sound.

The physical action of singing or speaking is the same for everyone. The reason we all sound different to each other is down to our physical attributes. The shape of our head, our bone structure, the position of our teeth, our nasal cavity, our sinuses. This is also know as our facial mask. Once that sound is produced by our vocal cords, it travels up towards our mouth and nose, where we shape and polish that sound around our facial mask before we exhale our own unique sound.

You can feel your larynx if you gently press the front of your throat and then swallow. You will feel it moving up and then back down to its original position. The action you feel here is your larynx lifting and your vocal cords closing to prevent food and drink from entering your windpipe as you swallow.

Your vocal cords are delicate structures. They appear white as there is little blood supply to them. They are also covered in mucous to prevent them drying out. The process of breathing, talking and singing or coughing can easily dry them out. This in turn leads to your vocal cords not being able to open and close easily, leading to friction or a hoarse voice. There’s more about vocal health here.

As a singer, learning how to control your breath and using vocal exercises to help you strengthen and develop flexibility in your voice is invaluable.

How To Find Your Vocal Range

Every singer would like to know what their voice type is. Try our easy to use video to help you discover what range you sing in.

First we will find the lowest note that you can reach.

Simply sing ‘la’ to each note that is played.

On screen you will see a code appear each time the note changes. Eg G4. These codes are the notes being played on the piano, and at what octave. When you reach the note that you feel is your lowest comfortable note. Write down the code.

Next we will try to find your highest note that you can reach. Again sing ‘la to each note that is played and write down the highest comfortable note you achieve.

Please note that the range of notes played are vast and you will not be able to sing all of them.Guys you will find you will be able to sing more of the lower part of the exercise and girls, you will sing more of the higher part of the exercise easier

You should now have to sets of codes

Compare them to the chart below to give you an idea of what range you sing in. I have included a brief explanation of the different singing ranges below, and an explanation if your codes are outside the guidelines of each range.

Female Voice Ranges:

Alto or contralto.

This is the lowest female voice range. generally very similar to the male tenor range – from F below middle C to a high D (F3-D5). In choral work, altos generally support the harmony to the soprano’s melody. Famous Pop alto singers include Adele, Alison Moyet, Shirley Bassey and Patsy Cline.

Mezzo Soprano

The middle range and most common of the female voice, generally ranging from G below middle C to high A (G3-A5)

In choral music, Mezzo’s usually sing along with the sopranos, although sometimes, soprano parts may be split into two and the mezzos will take the Soprano 2 part.

The highest female voice range, generally ranging from middle C above Top C: (this is a conservative range estimate for a professional singer. A true soprano can often reach a top E or even higher). In choral music, the soprano’s often get the melody line. Famous pop sopranos include Kate Bush, Sarah Brightman and Dolly Parton.

Male Voice Ranges:

Bass

This deepest male voice, generally ranging from a low C, two octaves below middle C to E above middle C (E2-E4). In Choral basses may have rather monotone harmonies. In opera, basses probably have the greatest range of roles. Famous Bass singers include Nat King Cole and Louis Armstrong.

Baritone

The middle range for the male voice, and is the most common of the male singing voices.. It ranges from the second G below middle C to the F above (G2-F4). Most male pop singers sing within this baritone range.

Tenor

This is the highest of the male voices, with a vocal range of C below middle C to G above middle C (C3-G4). In Opera, the Primo Uomo (principle male) is most often a tenor. Famous pop tenors would include Michael Jackson, Phil Collins and Freddie Mercury.

Counter Tenor

This is one of the most rarest of male voices. A true countertenor is a male singer who can sing as high as soprano, without using falsetto. However many singers who sing in the counter tenors have developed a very strong and powerful falsetto. Counter Tenors were highly prized in 16th Century church music and many boys underwent castration to prevent their voices from breaking. They were know as Castrato and the last know was Alessandro Moreschi who died in 1922. Here’s a recording of him.

I’ve got codes that are outside the singing ranges suggested

The suggested guidelines for the singing ranges are standardised. Music written for eg. a Bass singer will be written within this range of notes. Many of you will find that you have a range beyond

eg : Alto range. You can reach below the low F and you can easily reach notes beyond the high D.

This is where other factors (explained below) which will determine your voice range. Depending on what genre of music you sing, or even the role you take, your singing teacher, choir or music director may point you into the Mezzo range or feel you are more suited to an Alto range.

The different characteristics which, also factor in determining your voice type:

·Transition points – points where you change from chest, to middle, to head register

·Vocal registers – how extended each register is

·Speech level – speaking range

·Physical characteristics

For example, vocal tessitura and timbre can be more important as range can be between types. This is usually the case with sopranos and mezzo-sopranos; they might have the same range but mezzo-sopranos have a lower tessitura and darker timbre.

Something else to mention, especially in the pop genre, singers have what are called ‘Money Notes’. This is the part of the song, which the singer’s voice can being out the most emotion or dramatic part of the song, have a challenging technique or reach high notes that are difficult to sing, It all helps sell tickets or albums, for which the singer become well-known for, but it may not always sit within a particular voice range.

Every singer has a unique voice, and should sing what is comfortable for them.

Singing Warm Up

Singers are like dancers and athletes – they need to warm up before they perform. You will never see a dancer launch themselves into a routine without properly warming up their bodies beforehand. This is because their muscles are not ready for what is being asked of them, they are not prepared or sufficiently stretched. It leads to serious injuries, which can lead to the dancer being out of action for many week/months.

The same applies to the vocalist. Before we start to sing, we need to prepare our body and our vocal cords in readiness for singing. A regular routine of warm-up exercises will make sure your voice is ready for further practice or prepare you for your performance.

Posture

Feel yourself being pulled upwards from your navel to the top of your head, so that you create more space for air in your lungs

Try standing with your knees unlocked and with one foot slightly in front of the other, about shoulder width apart

Relax but don’t slouch!

Next start some shoulder rolls. Gently roll your shoulders back in a circular motion, then try rolling them forwards in a circular motion. Release all that tension in your shoulders.

Now try rolling your head around in a circular motion, around the the right, then to the left. Also bring your head down so that your look at the floor, then tilt your head back so that you look upwards.

Breathing

Exercise 1

Take a controlled long and deep breath.Breathe in through your nose. Count to 8 as you continue to breathe in. Feel the air filling every part of your lungs, and remember to keep your shoulders down and relaxed.

Now breathe out through your mouth. Keep that breathe controlled, and again count to 8 as you’re breathing out. and repeat

Exercise 2

Next try breathing through your mouth (as if you are sipping in through that big straw) but control it over the counts of four:

Inhale 2 3 4 Hold 2 3 4 Exhale 2 3 4

Inhale 2 3 4 Hold 2 3 4 Exhale 2 3 4

Inhale 2 3 4 Hold 2 3 4 Exhale 2 3 4 and relax.

Exercise 3

Take a deep breath in, then exhale gently in a SSSSSS breathe (hissing like a snake). Work on keeping your exhalation a steady and constant stream for as long as you are able.

When you start to get the urge to breathe, try and continue exhaling just a little bit more before you have to breathe in.

Some people can manage just a few seconds, others can manage a minute or more.

Do what is right for you to begin with. Try timing yourself. Eg this week you managed 10 seconds, next week try for 11 seconds etc.

Warning: You will start to feel dizzy and lightheaded if you do too many breathing exercises in straight succession. If this happens to you, please stop the exercises and sit quietly until the feeling passes.

Humming

The reason we need to warm up our voice before we start singing, is because our vocal cords are delicate membranes, with muscles attached, which open and close these membranes to give us our voice. Our voice is capable of giving us high notes and low notes, and if we warm-up and stretch these muscles, then they will perform much better, without causing injury to our voice muscles.

A gentle, quiet hum is a great way of warming up your voice. Even if scales are not your thing, humming quietly to one of your slower, more melodic songs can help warm up your vocal cords.

Warm Up Exercises

Here we’ve put together a few exercises to warm up your vocal cords and get you ready for singing.

Humming Scale
Gently hum along to the track with each key change
The following exercises use vowel sounds. Use one vowel sound for the exercise and then change the vowel on the keychange and begin the exercise again on the new vowel sound.
La (as in apple)- (La,la, la,la,la,la,la,la,la) - keychange - now change your vowel sound to
Leh (as in elephant) (Leh, leh, leh and so on) keychange - now change your vowel sound to

Lutgen Vocalises – Vocal Exercise

The aim of these vocalises is to render the voice sufficiently flexible and mellow to execute easily and elegantly the colorature and embellishments found in the works of our great composers. They are intended to be, for the singer, what Czerny’s School of Velocity is for the pianist.

Proceeding from the principle, that it is unpractical to practice a variety of difficult passages at the same time, I begin with exercises on two, three and four tones, then advancing progressively to more difficult exercises; leaving it to the teacher to transpose them a semitone higher or lower.

However, in order to avoid the monotony and lassitude which are almost inseparable from a strictly methodic course of study, I have endeavored to clothe my exercises in a musical and agreeable form; and have made them very short, to prevent overexertion of the voice.

Following its avowed purpose, this work contains no exercises for sustained tones; and it will suffice to sing daily a few long-sustained tones, before taking up these exercises.

The results obtained with this method, and its approbation by several of the highest musical authorities, justify my hope, that it will find a favorable reception.

B. Lütgen

Lütgen added a note on the second page of his edition: These vocal exercises may be gradually transposed a semitone higher or lower, without overpassing the natural limits of the voice.

This series of scores is intended to present these vocalises in many different keys. So, the students and pianists have not to transpose the lessons on the fly and may avoid by this way unnesserary errors. It is important for singers to know exactly what tone they are actually singing and these transposed versions give them the chance to do so. By that way, they also can train their reading capabilities in different tonalities.

In this set, every vocalise is presented:
1. by number
2. Key

Vocal Exercise Learning Tracks to help make the voice more flexible and mellow. Although originally intended for singers of the works of composers, they can be used by anyone who wishes to exercise the voice.